Book Reviews and Adventures in Writing

Tag: Writing

Last week felt long. Like, really really long. I had so. much. time! I played video games, went to see Snow Patrol, cleaned the house, played more video games. We beat Overcooked and started on the DLC. I tried to catch up on my reading. It was nice, but I was also very restless. I didn’t feel like I ever really relaxed, until I crossed over the Cascades and started my hiking weekend.

We started with a breakfast in Sisters then drove through Bend and to the Newberry Volcano National Monument, where we explored a Lava Tube Cave. I’d never been in a cave before, and having just read The Luminous Dead, I was understandably nervous. Turns out, it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

If you ever have the opportunity to see a cave, you absolutely should. It was an amazing experience, an all new sensation for me that has left me feeling inspired and in awe.

After that was lunch in Bend at a restaurant called Spork, where I ate Lomo Saltado and could have died with joy. We’ve made Lomo Saltado in my house a few times and it’s definitely a household favorite and comfort food. But I’ve never had “real” Lomo Saltado. Turns out, ours is pretty dang close and it’s all delicious. Then we went to Prineville to meet our friend and get settled at her place for the night. We ordered pizza and watched the new What We Do in the Shadows tv show. We binged all eight episodes over the weekend and I am obsessed with it. I can’t wait to share it with Trevor. If you liked the movie, I’m here to tell you that the show is even better.

The next morning was the big day: The Painted Hills! It’s something I’ve always wanted to see, a natural wonder that I honestly forgot was in Oregon. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about my passion for geology here, but I’m a bit of a rock nerd. And this weekend my rock nerd was a kid in a candy shop!

It was supposed to rain, but instead it was sunny and I was a dummy in a tank top getting a sweet, sweet sunburn. But I’m not even mad. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful place; I’ll take a little pain for it.

We had lunch in one of the tiniest towns I’ve ever seen, called Mitchell, where there were three cafés, a feed store, a grocery story, and one brewery. It was adorable in a very dusty, hard-working, Old West kind of way. It reminded me of home and going to the feed store with my papa. It reminded me that I do have love in my heart for the desert. It made me want to take a hiking trip back home. Maybe next spring?

And then I came home last night and had a great evening in, playing games and making food with the husbando, preparing for the week ahead. Overall, it was a relaxing and productive week in its own right. I’m glad I made myself take a break.

What’s Next?

Publish two blog posts

Start a new short story

Read Madhu’s pages

Finish reading Beneath a Sugar Sky

I’m going into this week feeling a little lost at sea. I’m not sure where to start, but I do feel like I have the energy and focus to work on something. It’s just a matter of figuring out what that project will be. I have a couple ideas, but we’ll see where the week goes.

Madhu and I exchanged pages before I left for the weekend. She’s already read mine and replied, and since we have a Walk ‘n’ Talk™ scheduled for Thursday afternoon I need to read hers soon.

I’m on track to finish Beneath a Sugar Sky either tonight or tomorrow and would really like to read All Systems Red before the week is out as well. We’ll see how that goes depending on how much time I spend writing this week. Since I want to revisit Exodus: Descent for revisions this summer, reading all these novellas will prove quite useful.

Submissions are still out. I’m beginning to hear the Jeopardy! theme whenever I have a quiet moment and the dread starts to build. I should hear back on at least one story either this week or the next. Fingers crossed.

I don’t have any book reviews primed for this week, mainly because I’m reading novellas and short stories right now. But, I do want to share my thoughts on the drafting process of this book, so might do a sort of recap talking about the experience. Either way, I’ll come back later this week with something to share.

It’s Monday, Blogland. And I really feel it today. The weekend was less restorative than it was just… catatonic. And now the sunshine is gone, replaced with cooler temps and clouds. All I want to do is sleep and play Assassin’s Creed: Origins. Is that so wrong?

Inspired by the Write Here, Write Now event a couple weekends ago, on Friday I hosted a Write-a-thon in the Writer’s Discord I’m a member of. I wanted to finish the book on Friday, plus I’d set a goal — a deadline — and I was determined to keep it. With only a couple chapters to go, I figured that I might be able to eke it out.

I was correct. I wrote 5400+ words on Friday, which more or less melted my brain. I have no idea if what I wrote made sense, but it seemed to at the time. The last few chapters came very differently than the rest of the book, which will probably be a whole post of its own once I’ve sat on the realization that I finished my book’s rough draft a bit longer. There are thoughts swirling in my brain about the experience of writing this book over the last six months and I’ll want to write them all down somewhere. Might as well be here.

I also started another 500 word story for my patrons, but I’m not sold on it yet. It’s a rehashing of a very old scene I wrote for an exercise in a Creative Writing class. I can’t find the original scene, but I remember it pretty clearly. I want to readdress some of the themes and see if I can’t do it better now, eight years or so later.

I didn’t read much last week because I was writing so much. So that’s a bummer. But, I spent the weekend bingeing Assassin’s Creed, playing Overcooked with the husbando, and generally avoiding the world. Due to Mother’s Day festivities on Saturday, I did not go on my hike to Cape Falcon, which was disappointing. After Friday’s marathon I could have really used the peace and solitude of the coast.

What’s Next?

Enjoy a week off

I’m taking a mini-vacation y’all. No writing this week. No looking at the book, no deciding what to write next. I need to air out my brain and take a well deserved break. Tomorrow night is the Snow Patrol concert, Wednesday is the Willamette Writer’s meeting, Thursday night is Trivia, and then Friday-Sunday I’m out of town on a hiking trip!

I’ll be busy, but not with writing, which will make for a refreshing change of pace. Hopefully it’ll have me back in action for the week after when it’s time to write some short stories!

I’m still (slowly) making my way through the Wayward Children series, and have The Murderbot Diaries queued up for after that. I’m still reading short stories. I’m still doing all of these things, just letting my brain take a bit of a nap before we move on to the next project. And since I don’t have any reviews to share, and no writing news either, I probably won’t be back on the blog this week.

Next week you can expect lots of pictures from the hikes, and maybe even a few from the concert tomorrow.

I FINISHED MY BOOK!!!!!

Here are a series of gifs that capture how today’s writing session (5,419 words) felt:

Don’t stop, get it get it

My brain has melted!

No, wait, SECOND WIND! I am unstoppable!

I’m going to sleep for a million years now.

So yeah. The rough draft is done. I’m excited and so so tired. There’s still a mountain of work to do, but that’s for a future Brittany. Right Now Brittany is going to root herself in front of the PS4 and play Overcooked until she passes out.

Last week was a blur. I had so many social activities, writing activities, and spent so much time with my fingers to keyboard that I can’t really remember the details of the week beyond “I wrote lots.”

Where do I start? I upped my word count goal to 1k/day because I NEED to get this book done before the week of the 13th. I wasn’t confident that I could meet that goal, not at all. But, not only is it good to get used to writing to a deadline, but I don’t want to think about my book (especially the ending) when I should be enjoying my celebrations. Snow Patrol and a hiking trip in the same week. I CANNOT be mulling over a book that week.

Don’t know if you noticed, but I met and exceeded my goal. A big part of that was the Write Here, Write Now event on Saturday, where I spent almost four hours writing. It was a great day and I fully intend to go again next year.

My reading slowed down a little this week, probably because I spent so much time writing. But I still read Every Heart a Doorway and should finish the sequel Down Among the Sticks and Bones this week.

I also launched my Patreon this week! As you may know, Patreon is increasing their rates starting tomorrow, and I’d been sitting on my page doubting whether I should launch it or not. This change was reason enough to go live, and I’m having fun planning my first round of rewards. I’m sharing a lot of free writing advice there as well as a Newsletter and Original Fiction, so you should take a look.

What’s Next?

Publish two blog posts

Finish Tavi rough draft

That’s it folks. That’s all I want to do this week. Write a book review for The Luminous Dead, share my reading recap, and finish this book. I’ll have to write another 7k words or more to make it happen, and I don’t have a writing event this weekend, so it’s going to be a near thing. Please send me all your motivation and discipline.

I’m going on a hike this weekend, to Cape Falcon, so expect photos and the usual complaints. I also have a Walk ‘n’ Talk with Madhu. It’d be amazing if the book were done by then, but it’s highly unlikely. Which is for the best, since endings are tricky and I’ll probably need to talk through it a bit to nail it down.

Luckily there are no pressing social activities this week so ought to be able to hunker down and get this book finished!

Wish me luck, Bloggarts.

I’ll be around this week with a book review and the reading recap for April, so keep an eye out for those.

Yesterday was Willamette Writers’ Write Here, Write Now event, where a slew of authors give 10 minute talks, followed by 45 minute writing blocks. Lunch was catered and each attendee had two 12 minute one-on-ones with an author. I had sessions with both Devon Monk and Diana Pharaoh Francis and it was awesome!

I don’t want to get into a play-by-play of the day, but just wanted to say that the event was 100% worth it. I wrote just over 3,800 words yesterday. I met authors and local writers and did a fantastic job of being myself. I can’t emphasize how difficult that is for me in a new social setting. But I was funny, unafraid to chat, and made some new writer contacts, so that’s a big win for me. Just as much a win as busting out all those words.

Speaking of, those words put me just slightly ahead of schedule for finishing my novel. I have an outlined one and a half chapters left, but I think there’s going to be more than that before everything is said and done. Which means this rough draft will be over 80k!

Now, Blogland, I knew working two jobs was a pretty big time suck. I knew it affected my productivity. But I thought I’d need a ramp up period after quitting Starbucks to get back to the levels of output I’d once had. Turns out, not so much.

April Goals

Write 500 words/day on Tavi

Read 1 short story/week

Continue short story submissions

Keep reading!

How’d I do?

Write 500 words/day on Tavi

YES! And more! I wrote an average of over 600 words a day on this project in April.

Read 1 short story/week

Yep. I read/listened to five short stories this month, so once again I went above and beyond.

Continue short story submissions

Yes. The three stories are still waiting, but I also wrote a (very) short piece for a contest, which I’ll talk more about once I can. It’s all very hush, hush for now.

Keep reading!

Yep! I read so much this past month. I think something like nine titles, not counting the short stories. There were five book reviews posted to the blog in April.

Monthly Word Count: 21,140

April was a test of endurance and distraction. Endurance in that I came at writing the manuscript as a daily practice, doing a little bit each day. Now that all is said and done, I wrote an average of 639 words each day on Tavi. Now, I didn’t actually write every single day. There were days where I wrote nothing, but the next day wrote over 1500 words. But I kept coming back and kept track of where I was at on the way to my goal. And it worked.

For once, I mean distraction as a good thing. Usually distraction comes as video games or a tv binge session, both of which tend to seep into my writing time. But in April, I knew I needed a distraction from my pending submissions or I would go nuts with the anxiety. So, I threw myself into my writing, into reading, and into writing/author events. Which meant it was a really busy month.

Things I did:

Went on two hikes, one to Cape Lookout and another to Opal Creek. Total mileage: 12.6, with elevation gains of 810 feet and 652 feet, respectively.

Went on one Walk ‘n’ Talk with Madhu. Total Mileage: 2.8 miles, with only a 16 foot elevation gain.

Went to the SFWA Reading in Portland where I met four authors and networked a little. Also got to try a new brewery and spend time with Husbando.

Celebrated Independent Bookstore Day by going to two bookstores. Met up with Ken Scholes and shot the shit, made more writer contacts in the area. Also celebrated the release of The Audient Void‘s seventh issue (buy your copy here).

Attended the Willamette Writers meeting on April 17th. Listened to Ken Coomes talk about all kinds of stuff, from Self-publishing to the benefits of public speaking on your writing. I don’t feel like I got very much out of it, but I did like the presenter himself. Seemed like a nice guy.

Launched my Patreon! This will eventually have an announcement post all its own. Right now it’s a bit of a fledgling thing while I figure out what sort of content to share with patrons. So far there will be a Newsletter, a short story each month, and some freebie writing tips. If you’d like to support me, or just check out the free stuff, you should swing on by.

And that doesn’t include all the quality reading and writing time! What a busy month! And from the look of things, May is set to be the same.

May Goals

Finish Tavi rough draft

Continue short story submissions

Read a short story each week

Keep reading!

I’m sticking with the adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Last month went really well, so let’s keep that momentum going!

May is already looking like a busy month, so I want to get Tavi done by Monday May 13th. Which means I have just under two weeks to write about 11,000 words. Luckily there’s the Willamette Writers Write Here, Write Now event this weekend, so it should be a good opportunity to really hash out some words and get the jump on the final chapters of this book.

The week of the 13th is a big one for non-writing reasons. The 14th is the Snow Patrol concert. I can’t believe it’s almost here! Any time I think about it I just get this giddy glowy feeling because I love them so much and I one hundred percent thought I would never get to see them perform again.

I love them so very very very much.

So there’s that. But there’s also a girls’ weekend in central Oregon right after that, visiting a friend and hiking all the things. We’re going to the Painted Hills and probably Smith Rock. It’s gonna be warm and sunny and I’m going to be a very happy Desert Rat. And probably sunburned. There will be photos.

So, I NEED to finish Tavi before that week because it’s my vacation week. My week to turn off my writing brain and have fun! My celebration week, to congratulate myself on a job well done. A six month long project finally finished.

Because after that comes a whole new slew of projects and goals. I have a lot of things waiting on the end of May so it’s going to be a stressful last half of the month. I want to work hard and play hard in the first half.

I’ll be back on Friday with the review for The Light Brigade. Then probably quiet here over the weekend while I focus on finishing this book.

Yep! Finished it Wednesday night, and started on The Luminous Dead Thursday night. I stayed up late last night to finish it.

Weekly Word Count: 5,436

Um… Yeah. You might say I had a productive week. Every time I sat down to write, words poured out of me. I surpassed my word count goals by Thursday, and came back to the manuscript on Sunday to just add a little icing to the cake.

I was also a reading machine this week, finishing two books and slowly climbing my way back on track for my yearly goal.

Short story submissions continue to wait. I think this is the longest I’ve every waited to hear back on a story, with all of them pending for 50 days or more. It’s exhausting, but also kind of nice. I’m starting to forget about them. I check The Submission Grinder once or twice a day and then move on. It’s sinking in that I’ll find out when I find out and no amount of analyzation will change that. It’s… freeing, really.

Thursday night was the SFWA Reading in Portland, which was amazing. I got to meet Sam J. Miller, Rebecca Roanhorse, Kari Maaren, and Caitlin Starling (who wrote The Luminous Dead). Plus, there was good food and beer!

Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day and I celebrated with visits to two of the bookstores in town. Ken Scholes, who was the lecturer at the OWC writing conference last year, was at one and we shot the shit for awhile, leading to two introductions to writers in my community. So that was AWESOME! Then I went to Book Bin to attend a couple panels and then celebrate the release of the newest issue of The Audient Void.

It was a very busy, bookish week, which I loved. But I’m tired right now. I want to lock the door to my office and barricade myself in until this book is done. Unfortunately, I have yet another busy week ahead of me.

What’s Next?

Publish two blog posts

Write 1000 words/day on Tavi

That’s it. This week and next are about finishing this book. I have just over four chapters left if the story sticks to the outline. It won’t. But I can dream. And this is the dream that’s gonna make sure I buckle down and finish this book. Point is, it’s close. It’ll be done sooner than later at this rate.

But, this week is a busy one. Tonight is the annual Mug Club dinner at Salem Ale Works, then Wednesday night we’re going to see a showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark at the historic theatre in town. And then Saturday is Write Here, Write Now. At least that’s an entire day devoted to nothing but writing. I’m banking on some serious productivity that day. Between work and social engagements, it’s going to be tough to write as much as I need to to stay on track.

Though it isn’t an official goal this week, I will still be reading. Today I’m starting Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children novella series, and I’ll probably read a Deadpool comic too. Because of all the reading lately there will be a lot of activity on the blog. I’ve got the Monthly Recap this week and The Light Brigade review. The week after that is the Reading Round Up and The Luminous Dead review.